Politifact Has Their Pants On Fire For Newt

The Atlanta Journal Constitution, the local Atlanta paper, has a Politifact ‘fact checking’ today in regards to the ethics investigation that was launched against Newt Gingrich back when he was Speaker of the House in the 90’s. In their opinion, and that is all that it is, the statement by Gingrich that he was “exonerated on all charges in the investigation” rates a “Pants on Fire”.

Using the information they used in their research I was left scratching my head. In a nutshell, after Newt led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton and pushed through much of his Contract For America the Democrats, in one of their typical out of control witch hunts, lodged 84 ethics complaints against Newt. It is a classic case of throwing enough stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks. They did manage to get one charge to stick, although he was later cleared on that charge by the IRS.

If we give them the one charge that did stick, that he was later cleared from it still doesn’t qualify as Politifact asserts as “Even if both groups were cleared, that would not blot out or negate the House of Representatives’ historic decision to reprimand him. Trying to claim that it does is ridiculous.”

It was not historic. Here is a list of members of the House who have been reprimanded. The list contains six Democrats and three Republicans. Therefore, I rate Politifacts ruling as “Pants on Fire” along with their statement that it was historic. In fact it is worthy of a “Gasoline Soaked Underwear in Hades” rating.